4.3 The second innovation: The Natural Auditory Oral Approach (NAOA), Cued Speech and
4.3.7 Overcoming limitations: The adoption of cued speech as an educational tool
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Books, props and activities were used to enrich these language conversations. Despite the fact that NAOA recognises facial expression, body language and natural gestures, the emphasis is on listening — a principle based on the premise that all children learn through listening. Teachers therefore encouraged learners ‘to listen’ rather than ‘to look’.
One of the key principles in NAOA is the provision of a language-enabling environment, in order to facilitate language acquisition. In this regard, teachers used natural daily interactions such as eating, dressing and playing, as well as entertainment and literacy activities that exposed learners to a variety of oral vocabulary. It was believed that these activities would provide opportunities for learners to experience language. Turan (2010) explains that natural daily interactions provide children with the context for language development and communication skills. It is further contended that the amount of talk within the context of activities has a powerful effect on language development (Hart & Risley, 1995).
Sign Language in any form was prohibited. This was in keeping with the NAOA belief that the introduction of Sign Language or sign-assisted communication will seriously interfere with the development of speech and language if the spoken language has not yet been well established.
Our intention was to introduce Sign Language in the third year of the programme. We envisaged that most learners would have acquired some degree of English after the first three years.
However, this did not materialise because we were unable to separate learners from their signing peers. Thus, learners were exposed to Sign Language in the hostels and playgrounds. I will discuss the issue of Sign Language in this programme in section 4.3.8.
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difficulty in this regard. However, the recommendation was that teachers continued using speech with a focus on listening skills. I was not convinced that this was the answer.
This did not discourage me. I encouraged the audiologist and class teachers to research the issues of sound and lip patterns. My own readings enriched my understanding that Deaf learners learn to read and engage text using essentially the same processes as hearing learners. The hypothesis was that the relatively poor reading skills of Deaf individuals resulted from deficiencies in phonological processing. The argument of scholars who emphasise that Deaf children must develop phonological capabilities in order to become skilled readers intensified my quest to solve the phonetic problem that was being experienced in this class (Davis & Humphrey, 2012;
Hansen, 1991).
The class teacher reported that an article written by Dixon (1987, in Kipila & Williams-Scott, 1990) called “Cued Speech” had captured her interest. In this article Dixon explains the meaning of Cued Speech and highlights the potential for its use with Deaf learners in particular. Dixon maintains that “the one thing I am surest of in connection with Cued Speech is that any deaf child who grows up with Cued Speech and becomes able to communicate fluently with it before he is taught to read, learns to read just the way a hearing child does” (p. 156).
Cued Speech is an auditory visual approach that uses hand shapes to supplement and support spoken language (Fig. 72). This tool has the potential to remove the ambiguities of lip reading, allowing for the Deaf learner to understand correctly what is being said. It is argued that Cued Speech is based on a simple hypothesis: if all essential sounds of our spoken language were to look different on the lips, then even a completely Deaf child could learn language much the same way as a hearing child, the difference being that Deaf children use their visual rather than their aural sense (Campbell, 2008). The aim of Cued Speech was thus to overcome the problem of lip reading, enabling Deaf learners to understand spoken language (Heracleous & Beautemp, 2010).
The class teacher Rosemary (pseudonym), the speech therapist and the audiologist were all excited about the possibility that Cued Speech could be the answer to developing phonological processing. If so, Cued Speech could be used as a supportive mechanism within NAOA. I was not averse to the idea as long as Cued Speech would help me realise my goal of improving the language and literacy levels of learners.
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Figure 72. A learner at Hilltop cueing the word ‘computer’.
Training in Cued Speech then became our priority. Rosemary was fuelled with passion and enthusiasm, and this propelled her to do an Internet search for any training offered in Cued Speech. She discovered a course in Canterbury, England. On her own initiative she secured a sponsorship to attend the Cued Speech Foundation course that was held in early 2006. Here she attained proficiency (level 1) in Cued Speech. In July 2006, she was sponsored by the Cued Speech Foundation in America to attend the fortieth anniversary of Cued Speech in the USA, where she then attained proficiency (level 2) in Cued Speech.
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After completing these courses, she returned to school confident that Cued Speech could be used as a strategy for the phonetic processing of new words. She convinced me that the use of Cued Speech in all learning areas in her pilot NAOA class would help learners to read.
I was willing to attempt this method, and so I arranged for training workshops for all the relevant personnel (Fig. 73). Rosemary conducted the workshops, sharing her experience and knowledge with management and all other staff members who were involved in the NAOA initiative.
Figure 73. Cued Speech workshop conducted with staff members at Hilltop School.
At the workshops she demonstrated how Cued Speech could be used to assist with phonetic processing in the acquisition of new words. Through her demonstrations I was able to visualise how Cued Speech could assist Deaf readers whose orientation in reading is typically visual. While some staff members were receptive to the idea of using Cued Speech as a supportive mechanism to NAOA, others were sceptical and expressed concern that Cued Speech ‘seemed’ like an unnatural method to assist communication. To demonstrate the effectiveness of Cued Speech as a language-acquisition tool, Rosemary conducted an auditory discrimination test on her pilot class. This was done to determine the learners’ accuracy of receiving a spoken language when using cues and audition together.
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Figure 74. Testing discrimination and reception of sounds.
Sounds and words were tested in isolation and not in the context of a sentence. The sounds in Test 3 and 4 look the same on the lips. Figure 74 clearly indicates that the learners were receiving Cued English with greater accuracy than using the audition only or audition/lip-reading modes.
I was impressed with the results of the test. Around 80% of the class could spell the majority of the words correctly when following the cues of the teacher. I could immediately foresee the positive impact that Cued Speech would have on the word-learning abilities of Deaf learners, and in addressing any deficiencies in the phonological processing of Deaf learners. I decided to back the project fully. Although I initially felt apprehensive, my belief in the need for a programme of this nature and its potential affects meant I overcame any misgivings. My passion to improve literacy, and my belief that Deaf children have the capacity to develop language and speech motivated me to proceed. Cued Speech was thus implemented in the second year of the pilot project (2006). The Grade 0 (pilot) class had now progressed to Grade 1. The class teacher recommended that the eleven learners be split into two class units, Grade 1A and Grade 1B, with five and six learners respectively. It was anticipated that smaller class units would facilitate individual attention for learners.
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